environment
aardvarchaeology | November 20, 2007
For a Swede, I believe I have an unusually small environmental footprint as my income is low and my habits relatively ascetic. But compared to most people in the world, anyone with half my standard of living is of course a huge culprit. The only thing I might brag about is having relatively few children, as I've fathered only one in each of my two marriages. Still, so do most Chinese, regardless of income, thanks to the admirable foresight and regrettable heavy-handedness of their dictatorship.
An obvious thing I could do to improve my enviro-karma is to fly less. I generally make two or…
j7uy5 | November 20, 2007America missed her chance to elect a sane pro-environmental
candidate
in 2000. Or rather, the Supreme Court missed its chance.
Whatever. The critical point is that
environmentalism cannot be understood as an isolated issue.
Pro-environmental thinking must pervade everything we do from
now on.
That is not to say that it is the only issue. In
some cases, it will not be the most important issue. But it
should be considered in all aspects of governmental activity.
Economic growth is totally worthless, if not sustainable.
Sometimes, it is worse than worthless. I believe we
shall
see…
clock | November 19, 2007As we are trying to help gather some funding to help the Tasmanian Devil from extinction due to the nasty infectious cancer, I thought it would be of interest to you to read more about it in this article: To Lose Both Would Look Like Carelessness: Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease to which I was alerted by a secret fan:
This paper uses the Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) as a case study of the wider issue of how to manage an emerging disease threat that poses a serious conservation threat: how should you proceed when you know very little? This is a question common to many…
revere | November 19, 2007Air pollution exists in two physical forms: as a gas (molecules) and as particles (usually heterogeneous agglomerations of huge numbers of molecules stuck together). Particles in the air are also called aerosols. Depending upon their size (really their aerodynamic behavior), their abundance and their composition, they can affect our lungs, vegetation or visibility. They can come from anywhere. Sometimes they are formed "in place" by secondary chemical reactions of precursor pollutants. Photochemical oxidant pollution ("smog") is of this type. Sometimes it is of natural origin and can be…
clock | November 18, 2007Tasmanian Devils are suffering from a strange form of cancer, one that is infectious, i.e., it can be transmitted from one animal to another through contact.
The disease is devastating the population of this already endangered species and if some cure is not found quickly, the species will go extinct. Thus, the research and conversation work is needed in these six areas:
1. Investigating the tumour and its chromosomes, looking for clues to resistance
2.Keeping some area or areas of Tasmania free from the disease i.e. wild management
3.Maintaining backup captive populations of devils in…
pharyngula | November 18, 2007After urging you all to do something to save the Tasmanian devil, I discover now that Tara wrote about DFTD last month. I guess I have to work harder to keep up with all these science bloggers.
pharyngula | November 17, 2007Kentucky, you're on notice.
The chairman of the joint Agricultural and Natural Resources Committee is holding hearings to promote ignorance and denialism. This is appalling.
Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, a longtime ally of the coal industry, said he purposefully did not invite anyone who believes in global warming to testify.
"You can only hear that the sky is falling so many times," said Gooch, whose post makes him the House Democrats' chief environmental strategist. "We hear it every day from the news media, from the colleges, from Hollywood."
Neither of Gooch's invited panelists was a…
pharyngula | November 17, 2007If you've been wondering what to do in the aftermath of Cyclone Sidr, the people to watch Chris and Sheril and influential blogger Greg Laden. Some specific information is available here and here, but I'm sure more will be coming up.
j7uy5 | November 16, 2007The environmental consequences of shopping catalogs have
been well
documented. For example, over eight million tons of trees are
consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs.
Now there is a website where you can go to opt out of them:
href="http://www.catalogchoice.org/#welcome">catalogchoice.org.
(Note the .org, not .com)
They've been up for about a month, and have already stopped the
unwanted delivery of over 1.5 million catalogs.
Update: the origin of the project is explained here.
clock | November 16, 2007Cyclone Sidr has hit Bangladesh. The number of casualties, though not as large as predicted, is still large and growing. More importantly, millions of people are displaced and have lost the sources of their livelihoods. The best way to help is to send money.
Red Cross/Red Crescent is probably in the best position to help fast. Or you may choose some other organization. Track the relief effort on the ReliefWeb. And donate today.
pharyngula | November 16, 2007
We had a seminar from Marco Restani of St Cloud State University yesterday — he's a wildlife biologist who talked about Tasmanian Devils. Just a little tip: don't ever invite wildlife biologists or conservation ecologists to give talks. They are the most depressing people in the world, and they really make it hard to hide away from the ugly realities. This talk was no exception: the Tasmanian Devil is in big trouble, and is facing at least two major threats, each of which may be sufficient to wipe them out. And just looke at that guy! He's adorable! How can you let them go extinct?
The first…
gregladen | November 15, 2007Disturbing news regarding the San Fran Bay oil spill from the New York Times:
The captain and crewmen of a Chinese ship responsible for an oil spill after hitting the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge have refused to speak to federal investigators, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday. But the local pilot who was guiding the ship told investigators that its radar had malfunctioned shortly before the accident.
...
The Coast Guard said Wednesday that the captain and crewmen were not tested for drugs within the required 32 hours after the accident. The pilot was…
gregladen | November 15, 2007The deadliest cyclone ever is said to have been the 1970 Bhola cyclone in Bangladesh. Perhaps a half million people died in that storm. That would be more than the number who died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The Bhola Cyclone was a category 3 storm. Cyclone Sidr, now bearing down on the Bangladesh coast, is probably a Category 5 storm, possibly a strong Category 5. The population of Bangladesh has approximately doubled since 1970. This could potentially add up to a potentially very serious disaster. However, the latest word from Chris Mooney is that the storm is doing most of its…
pharyngula | November 15, 2007Sidr is currently officially a Category 5 cyclone, and is about to make landfall in Bangladesh…and has also finally made the top news story at CNN. You can get more timely info from a Bangladesh blog and the Bangladesh online news agency.
tqa | November 14, 2007
You wouldn't necessarily know it from looking at most major American news sources, but there's a massive tropical cyclone in the Bay of Bengal right now, and it's heading right for one of the most vulnerable areas on the planet. If the most recent storm track predictions are accurate, the eye of the storm will most likely make landfall somewhere between Calcutta and the mouth of the main channel of the Ganges. Currently, the most optimistic forecasts suggest that the wind speeds at landfall will be in the neighborhood of 115 knots (132 mph) - and there's some data suggesting that it could be…
pharyngula | November 14, 2007Try checking the major American news sites: CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the New York Times, you can even try the BBC. There's a major news story missing.
You'll have to read Chris Mooney's blog to find it. There's a potential Category 5 cyclone, Cyclone Sidr, on its way to smash Bangladesh.
It's going to hit sometime tomorrow. While Sonny Perdue prays for a little rain, maybe we should be urging our news networks to pay attention to the important news, our government should be getting ready for emergency assistance, and we should all be preparing to loosen those checkbooks and possibly offer what aid…
gregladen | November 14, 2007Hopefully not, but the prospects of a major disaster in the Indian Ocean Basin are looming, and it is strangely underreported. Not a mention on CNN, for instance.
Chris Mooney is telling us that it is Time to Panic. He and I may not entirely agree on every detail of framing, but there is no way to argue with the man on this one.
A Category 4 hurricane/cyclone is about to plow into what might be the most vulnerable place on the earth, the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean Basin, I think it is going to hit Calcutta or environs late tomorrow.
Information is available here on Chris's…
pharyngula | November 13, 2007One of the goals of my university is to go green: we're working on wind and biomass power, we support local foods, we're making a major initiative to add environmental studies to our curriculum, and we're about to build a green dorm on campus. One interesting tack the green dormies are taking is to keep the public informed with a Green Dorm blog. So far, it's awfully dry reading and its not really taking advantage of the medium well — each post is little more than a link to a pdf document from the planning process — but they are open to comment, at least.
Maybe they should consult someone…
gregladen | November 11, 2007Five ships have sunk, so far, in the vicinity of the Kerch Strait, linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, in an incredible storm. One of the ships was a Russian tanker carrying 1,300 tons of fuel oil. Claims are being made that this is one of the worst environmental disasters ever. One of the things that lends significance to this disaster, regardless of how bad the environmental effects are, is the large number of ships that have sunk or have been rescued, and the dozens of sailors that appear to have died. The catch is that this is a result of one of those extreme storms that we seem…
grrlscientist | November 10, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, Tunguska event, Siberian explosion, Podkamennaya Tunguska River, Lake Cheko, planet earth, astronomy
Flattened trees cover vast areas of Northeastern Siberia
after the mysterious Tunguska explosion in June, 1908.
Image: TASS/Sovfoto (public domain?) [larger view].
As a kid, I was fascinated by the mysterious explosion that occurred over Siberia. Basically, in the morning of 30 June 1908, a few native peoples in Siberia reported seeing a blue light in the sky that was as bright as the sun and hearing a series of loud explosions, accompanied by fierce winds and…